…and it mostly involves small triumphs, like petting happy baby animals all around the world and finding a packet of dark chocolate-dipped Peeps to enjoy together some fine Easter. While naked.

And in a hot tub. In New Zealand. As much as we’d enjoy those wonders, we realize we haven’t placed many items on our BL. There are all kinds of internet sites available to help us expand our list (and yours, if you’re so inclined), including a few that will tell you specifically what you should do – such as this one, which offers 101 Things To Do Before You Die. The 101 Things team created a fairly basic Bucket List, especially if you’ve already made it past your twenties. Between us, the Renee Harrell has done at least 63 of the items and possibly more, depending on how the author cared to define things. We bet you’ve done a bunch, too. Run barefoot? Experience a sunset? Not too tough to check those challenges off anyone’s wish list. The 101Things team does toss in a couple of goodies that are going to be big league challenges for almost any of us. Personally, we doubt that we’ll “gain enlightenment” or “have an out-of-body experience” during either of our lifetimes. It’s not that we wouldn’t like achieving either of these goals, it’s just that those particular goals are very subjective and possibly outside of our skill set. Besides, we think there’s a chance that eating dark chocolate-dipped Peeps will help us gain enlightenment so why not go for the tasty treat? You doubt us but, oh, we too briefly tasted those dark chocolate wonders. Not naked, or in a hot tub, or while visiting New Zealand, but still. Then there are those items the 101 Things team suggested that instantly fell onto our Phucket List. Oh, you know the Phucket List. It’s what we call, 101 Things To Avoid Doing Before We Die. Those are the activities, events, or random bits of insanity that, no matter how much other people say they intend to try them, we will never, ever do because – unlike these other people – we are willing and eager to embrace our limitations. At the top of our Phucket List? Eating fugu. In an article headlined, Fugu: the fish more poisonous than cyanide, BBC.com says, The Japanese delicacy fugu, or blowfish, is so poisonous that the smallest mistake in its preparation could be fatal. The same article says the meal is awfully expensive and, if you manage not to die while eating it, you’ll discover your fishy entree tastes like chicken. We’ve already eaten chicken. We discovered we like chicken. Do you know what we tell people? It tastes just like fugu, but without the death. So tetrodotoxin poisoning is #1 on our list. The second item is climbing Mount Everest, and for good reason. After all, one patch of the mountain is called “the Death Zone” because so many people die there. Then we discovered, there’s all kinds of paperwork and training involved before you can go, the trip can cost over $100,000 dollars, and vomiting and diarrhea are two of the symptoms that await the brave explorers. It’s not for us, thank you. Besides, any adventure that requires the use of a pee funnel is an adventure we won’t be having. As far as adventures we are having? Babelcube continues to do its best to find us new readers, while not actually sending us any royalties. After Things Went Bad will have been translated into German by the end of the week and, yesterday, we received a new offer to have those same stories translated into Italian. We regretfully passed on seeing Frankenstein, P.I., in Spanish. We’ve gone through the first pass on a new audio book for one of our novellas, remembering (a little too late) how much work was involved in editing an audio book. Our fantasy novel will launch on April 8th under a new pen name…and the cover is so good, we almost posted it with this blog. At the last minute, we pulled it and posted – well, whatever it is we’ve stuck in the upper left hand corner. As we write this, we’re not exactly sure what’s going there. Maybe we’ll do a reveal of the fantasy book next month. Probably we won’t. After all, it’s not much of a pen name if everyone knows it, is it?Reading: Ozma of Oz. Written by Eric Shanower, based on L. Frank Baum’s original story, and illustrated by Skottie Young. The illustrations alone are more than worth it.Watching: We grew excited when we saw that Redbox had A DVD available with the title, Frankenstein vs The Mummy. At that instant, we knew exactly how we were going to spend the upcoming evening -- until a reviewer popped up, warning potential viewers (*spoiler*) there’s very little Frankenstein versus Mummy action at all. It seems like such a cheat, doesn't it? Happily, a friend recommended the 8-episode BroadchurchSeason Oneseries, over on Netflix, allowing us to enjoy our popcorn, after all. The acting is terrific and the story is gripping. While the story is sadly lacking in both Frankenstein and any Mummies so far, you never know about the Brits. We're only on Ep 5 and still have hope.

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is the electronic home of Renée Harrell. Did you bring any wine?

Renée & Harrell

It's about time you got here.

We aren't kidding about the wine.This is where we talk about writing... ...our writing, mostly. We also discuss kiva.org, Hunting Monsters Press, the magic bakery, self-publishing, pseudonyms, life itself -- a bunch of things.